Throughout history, power and dominance have been important aspects of all life, human and nonhuman. There are two main characteristics of power; who has the power and what it is being used for. It is rare to see power being shared equally. David Berreby writes in his article titled “It Takes a Tribe,” of the power of groups, and how the formation of groups, whether it be voluntary or involuntary, is inevitable and can create a sense of dominance. Meanwhile in the essay “Ways of Seeing,” John Berger writes of art and other images, and how viewing art from different points of view can lead to deeper meanings or implications. This is evident especially in terms of nudity in images, and how men use the nudity of women to create a seductive and …show more content…
While Berreby focuses his essay on groups found within college life, that idea can be expanded upon and is relevant to the world outside of a campus. This is the reason that Berger’s essay coincides with Berreby’s argument. While Berger does not write of students on a college campus forming cliques, he writes of groups of people such as men versus women who inadvertently express their superiority unto the other. This is done, for example, through works of art and photography. Berreby also explains that while people will go to extremes to just be a part of a group, otherwise described as being part of “us,” “they will also harm those labeled ‘them.’” (Berreby, 2) Here he is able to display the natural desire for people to separate themselves from others and view themselves as more powerful and dominant. The “us” factor promotes the separate of one group from another. Those not considered “us” are now known as the “them.” These feelings can lead to stereotypes, or more specifically, issues regarding racism, prejudices, or inequalities. (Berreby, 1) In the case of Berger’s argument, it can lead to the desire to be the dominant …show more content…
This clearly supports what Berreby informs his readers of regarding the need to feel more powerful than another. As Berger bluntly states in his essay, “men act and women appear.” (Berger, 47) In the context of nude art or even other forms of nude imagery, women are often portrayed as being submissive to their male counterparts, which can lead to the overall sexualized and objectified point of view. How the woman is displayed is solely up to the man she is being painted or photographed by. Art has the power of showing so little yet providing so much meaning to its audience, and when referring to the nude body of a woman, this idea remains true. Berger explains this by saying that “nakedness is not, however, an expression of [the subject’s] own feelings; it is a sign of her submission to the feelings or demands.” (Berger, 52) While something as simple as appearing without clothes may seem like a common presence in art and modern photography, there is most always a different motive that isn’t directly portrayed. Men use a woman’s gaze and her nude body to put her on display and to portray her as subservient to the man. This makes then makes the woman an object of sexuality. (Berger, 54) Thus portraying the nude woman as submissive, it gives the man power and dominance over her. This exact instance occurs throughout very early eras of art and within
In the article, “The Myth of Inferiority”, author T. Allen Culpepper writes, “The danger is that the perception of difference between the
What is power to a human? As time has gone by, there have been many forms of control and influence in the world. Many strive to achieve total rule over a society or group of individuals. Yet the question still presents itself to the average man. Why does man desire power so greatly even though there is visible trouble that follows? Shelley’s Frankenstein, Vonnegut’s “Harrison Bergeron”, and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, whether through the situation or the character themselves, depict the evils and hardships due to an imbalance and poor management of power.
Scott, Janny. “Shadowy Lines That Still Divide.” Class Matters. New York, New York: Times Books, 2005. 1-26. Print.
Within the Black Community there are a myriad of stigmas. In Mary Mebane’s essay, “Shades of Black”, she explores her experiences with and opinions of intraracial discrimination, namely the stigmas attached to women, darker skinned women, and blacks of the working class. From her experiences Mebane asserts that the younger generation, those that flourished under and after the Civil Rights Movement, would be free from discriminating attitudes that ruled the earlier generations. Mebane’s opinion of a younger generation was based on the attitudes of many college students during the 1960’s (pars.22), a time where embracing the African culture and promoting the equality of all people were popular ideals among many young people. However, intraracial discrimination has not completely vanished. Many Blacks do not identify the subtle discriminatory undertones attached to the stigmas associated with certain types of Black people, such as poor black people, lighter/darker complexion black people, and the “stereotypical” black man/woman. For many black Americans aged eighteen to twenty-five, discrimination based on skin color, social class, and gender can be blatant.
Ogbu, John. "Collective Identity and the Burden of "Acting White" in Black History, Community, and Education." The Urban Review (March 2004): 1-35.
In Rizga’s essay, she explains about how two different students who have experienced stereotype by someone’s race. A student named Brianna, was once in the bathroom with five of her other black girl friend’s fixing their hair. While two Asian American girls came in and saw them, they ran out right away, thinking something bad might happened and get bullied. Another experience from a student in Rizga’s essay was a girl named Rebecca. She exclaims how she moved to St. Louis from China. She went to an all-African American school and was told by her parents to stay away from black students, to not trust them, and run away even though they were all really nice to her. In Dickerson’s essay, she says one thing that is similar to these two situations of the student’s in Rizga’s essay. Dickerson says, “Race is an arbitrary system for establishing hierarchy and privilege” (69). If so, we shouldn’t rank one above the other or lower, stereotype and judge by their group of culture, education and race society has organized and shaped well in to be pushed and categorize by groups. Some of all of us, meaning of all people are not good. Stereo type and social stereo type has caused difficulties in the world tension and
Among the books discussed over the duration of the course, the most recurrent theme has been the dominance of power relationships and the construction of institutions driven by power. The framework for these socially ingrained power relationships that has been transformed over time has been laid out by Michel Foucault in his book Discipline and Punish. According to Foucault, power is everywhere, dispersed in institutions and spread through discourses. The state functions on a number of dispositions which are hierarchical, naturalized and are the modes of power for the power elite. The result of this social and economic control is observed in nations and across nations through the beauty myth, the prison system, the creation of informal systems or the overarching cultural hegemony and attempted reform of the non-western world. The key to the success of this has been through the misrecognition of the constructed systems of power which are instated through very fundamental mediums that they are not questioned. These structures of control by the state are adopted and reproduced from the base of the familiar, through arrangements and dispositions that pose themselves as natural, as they are embodied and programmed in the play of language, in common sense, and in all what is socially taken for granted. In this essay I will examine these above mentioned structures of the power and how these models are used to discipline individuals and states.
... Members of the dominant groups are taught not to see privilege. Being white in the United States opens doors to whether or not we approve of the way we have been granted dominance. McIntosh, pg. 78, p. 78. 5-6) Johnson compares social systems to Monopoly.
Returning to his old high school after having had graduate ten years ago, Shamus Rahman Khan came in with one goal: to study the inequality of a school that claims to be more “diverse.” St. Paul’s School located in Concord, New Hampshire claims to have become more diverse over the years, accepting people of different racial backgrounds and social classes to their prestigious boarding school. However, as described in his book, Khan found that this claim made by the school is false. He also found out that the elite that used to attend his school is not the same as the elite attending it now. Nonetheless, it was the elite that were succeeding because they were the ones who could afford the school, had family linages that already attended the school, and mastered “ease” which made them privileged in society. Separating his book into five different chapters, each focusing on a different topic that helps support his claim, Khan describes this change in elite and the inequality that still accompanies St. Paul’s. In the introduction to Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School, Khan states the three most important points he will refer to during the rest of the book: hierarchies are natural and can be used to one’s advantage, experiences matter more than inherited qualities, and the elite signal their status through ease and openness. These are discussed thoroughly in throughout Privilege.
These are all stereotypes, a classification of a person or group based solely off of assumptions and opinion. Stereotypes lead to discrimination and harassment. This movie displays a wide variety of it, Janis is considered to be in the “outside group” and acts all tough against the plastics but in the end we find that it’s simply a defense mechanism because she blows up on Cady and you see that jealousy and anger from Janis. I thought that this went to show that forming these “secluded” groups that only certain people can be in actually brings people further apart. It creates a hostile environment for these young men and women and takes the focus away from why they are actually at school, and what person they truly want to
If the male gaze is a tool to conceptualize reality, then -like an axe- it can also be used as a weapon. The Paglia quotes above refer not only to matters of epistemology or even ontology ("This is what we see; therefore, this is what exists"), it is equally fitting to describe concrete powerrelations in a social system constructed on the basis of Apollonian control.
People use art to display the beauty found in the world and, because of this, women have been subject to objection through paintings and photography all throughout history. Whether it is a commissioned oil painting from the 17th century or an advertisement from the 20th century, there will always be some type of image that objectifies women. In the book Ways of Seeing John Berger states that a woman “comes to consider the surveyor and surveyed within her as the two constituent yet always distinct elements of her identity as a woman,” (Ways of Seeing 46). Berger is saying that women know they are seen as an object purely because they are women. Women in paintings and photography are objectified for the pleasure of the viewer, they are illustrated for the surveyor’s specifications, so in essence the picture is a better representation of the owner than the subject.
Power has been defined as the psychological relations over another to get them to do what you want them to do. We are exposed to forms of power from the time of birth. Our parents exercise power over us to behave in a way they deem appropriate. In school, teachers use their power to help us learn. When we enter the work world the power of our boss motivates us to perform and desire to move up the corporate ladder so that we too can intimidate someone with power one day. In Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness Kurtz had a power over the jungle and its people that was inexplicable.
Some theorists believe that ‘power is everywhere: not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere… power is not an institution, nor a structure, nor possession. It is the name we give to a complex strategic situation in a particular society. (Foucault, 1990: 93) This is because power is present in each individual and in every relationship. It is defined as the ability of a group to get another group to take some form of desired action, usually by consensual power and sometimes by force. (Holmes, Hughes &Julian, 2007) There have been a number of differing views on ‘power over’ the many years in which it has been studied. Theorist such as Anthony Gidden in his works on structuration theory attempts to integrate basic structural analyses and agency-centred traditions. According to this, people are free to act, but they must also use and replicate fundamental structures of power by and through their own actions. Power is wielded and maintained by how one ‘makes a difference’ and based on their decisions and actions, if one fails to exercise power, that is to ‘make a difference’ then power is lost. (Giddens: 1984: 14) However, more recent theorists have revisited older conceptions including the power one has over another and within the decision-making processes, and power, as the ability to set specific, wanted agendas. To put it simply, power is the ability to get others to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do. In the political arena, therefore, power is the ability to make or influence decisions that other people are bound by.
He who is subjected to a field of visibility, and who knows it, assumes responsibility for the constraints of power; he makes them play spontaneously upon himself; he inscribes in himself the power of relation in which he simultaneously plays both roles; he becomes the principle of his own subjection. By this very fact, the external power may throw off its physical weight; it tends to be non-corporal; and, the more it approaches this limit, the more constant, profound, and permanent are its effects; it is a perpetual victory that avoids any physical confrontation and which is always decided in advance.